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Blue Mountains Anzacs
Journal of a Futurist - 3 May 2004
SLAYING THE DRAGONFLY SLAYERS,
UPHOLDING THE LAW
Who would have thought a colony of flying insects in a wilderness swamp would down a Stealth? In a week that again highlighted the savagery of Coalition policy in the Middle East, the elusive Giant Dragonfly (Petalura gigantea) helped to halt a Hollywood Pentagon invasion of a World Heritage National Park. Is this an omen? As one of the greying greenies gathered at a mountain look-out on the Anzac holiday to update myself on the issue, I felt the chances of victory were slim. How could wild flowers, insects and moss win against dollars, celebs and explosions? As I surveyed the crowd, many only a month away from their first zimmer frames, I was also struck with the thought: what if we were just a bunch of killjoys?
Not even a film crew could destroy the Blue Mountains. Or could it? The plot of the multi million blockbuster, Stealth, hinges on who wins control of a runaway nuclear bomber - a rogue robot or the pilots of a rogue nation? It’s acclaimed cinematographer, Dean Semler, said this movie will “make Top Gun seem like On Golden Pond”. Okay, so long as it doesn’t make our forests and heath look like Iraq.
And yet, strangely, this is where the movie is set, as well as in other lands that have enjoyed the benefits of Pentagon nurturing, Afghanistan and Korea. Could Stealth be a propaganda movie? Of course. Most blockbusters are. Hollywood is to the Pentagon what Vogue is to the fashion industry.
In the end the matter was settled in the NSW Land & Environment Court where the honourable Mr Justice Lloyd trawled through the relevant laws. The Wilderness Act specifies these areas “be managed to preserve their capacity to evolve in the absence of significant human interference”, as well as to “permit opportunities for solitude and appropriate self reliant recreation”. On top of this, the National Parks’ own guidelines preclude all filming unrelated to the above objectives. Stealth lacked stealth. The judge upheld the objection, finding that: “declared wilderness areas are sacrosanct”.
The cultural arms bazaar moved to a less sensitive ridge, along with its life sized model of the bomber, leaving the pre-historic dragonfly to flutter for another millennium.
This was same week the citizens of Falluja were pounded by a bomber bigger than Stealth, with no independent body to cry “foul”, and still the invaders were turned back. If only for the twinkling of an eye.
SHOT BEATEN GAGGED HOODED SNAPPED - 'Wish you were here"
Enduring Freedom
Well, what else are the rubber gloves for? Oh, it flashes on the news as I write, “anal rape with a lightbulb”. Such are the ways to coerce prisoners into porn pyramids. For the first time in his life, Prime Minister John Howard has been compelled to utter a negative word about the behaviour of US troops: “appalling”. This was hastily sugared with praise for the launching of an investigation – one that was no doubt “fast tracked” after the pics fell into the hands of the media. Howard said that under Saddam’s regime the perpetrators would be promoted. Janis Karpinski, the dominatrix of the military jails in Iraq, seems to have soared to the rank of Brigagdier-General without a hitch.
The brutality of the military is systemic - how else do you get decent young people to kill?. My Lai was the scapegoat massacre – the others were kept form the spotlight. (A subject aired in previous journals). That atrocities took place at Abu Ghraib has long been common knowledge. Last July, Amnesty International revealed widespread abuses, including torture and the humiliation of prisoners. It found several detainees had died in custody, "mostly as a result of shooting by members of the coalition forces." Another clue as to how Iraqis were compelled to perform S&M fantasies: do it or die. Amnesty cited containment conditions of “extreme heat, insufficient water, inadequate washing facilities, open trenches for toilets, no change of clothes, even after two months' detention”. Another good reason to strip for General Kaminsky.
Despite several requests to visit Iraq’s detention centers, Amnesty was denied access, unlike Donald Rumsfeld, who toured the jail two months after publication of the Amnesty report, accompanied by kinky Kapinski, Was he aware of the murders, the fatal beatings, the sexual thuggery? It’s like asking Rumsfeld if he was aware that the sales of poison gas he negotiated with Saddam Hussain in the late 80’s could be fatal if inhaled.
Another star visitor to Abu Ghraib was U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz who is seen here touring the jail at the time Amnesty’s findings were first reported by Reuters. What did he know?
That so many snaps were taken suggests such behaviour was endorsed by the authorities. It’s not just a few rotten apples, as claimed, but the cream of the crop, the luxuriant fruit of a self deceiving, self righteous culture of oppression. The army leadership mirrors the leadership of the Coalition Big Three, which is dark, avaricious and soulless. The whole world is looking at these pictures and reeling in horror, so now millions of brilliant, big hearted American citizens must face up to the horrors committed in their name, of which Abu Ghraib is merely the tip of the, er, pyramid . When Brigadier General Karpinski assured the US media that her jails are run according to “international standards”, she is telling the truth.
An Iraqi PoW has said that a civilian translator, hired to work in the Abu Ghraib raped a male juvenile prisoner. “They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming ... and the female soldier was taking pictures.” Other snaps still in the hands of the US military show a dog being set on a prisoner. To its victims, Operation Enduring Freedom must seem like a satanic pun.
As Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, put is: “The liberators are worse than the dictators.”
The US military’s solution to its sex slave scandal at Abu Ghraib is to hire the guy that’s been running its torture center in Cuba. Yep, that’ll do the trick. A British nurse recently told a friend of mine that “some Pakistani blokes released by the Yanks are turning up with serious damage to their gums and fingernails as a result of their sojourn at Guantanamo Bay. They call it American dentistry and manicure.”
THE CURSE OF THE NEVILLE
Earlier this year, having accepted an invitation to address the Australian Internet Association, I was placed at the official table with three people of enormous importance, the Federal Attorney General, Daryl Williams, the head of Telstra, Ziggy Switkowski and the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, David Flint. Though not myself of Enormous Importance, despite my efforts, the social interactions were civil, if brief. All three of these high table rollers have since hit a sticky patch. Darryl is leaving politics, just at a time we were starting to realise he was in politics. Zwiggy has lost his Chairman, plus oodles of investors boodle and is now a plaything of a formally adoring fiscal press. David Flint is in disarray since the exposure of his love letters to a broadcaster whose ethics he was trusted to evaluate. I am shocked by the swiftness of these turn arounds and fear it something to do with my murky aura. It seems only fair to warn other notables of right wing persuasion not to sup with the Neville. See Netizens of the world unite
 we are good, they are evil
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